


if this had a serious title it would be Parallelism (bc usopp and sanji leaving the crew parallels it's deep)

by MalkyTop



Series: Commissioned Work [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: #makesanjiapologize2k18, M/M, and a whole lot of EMOTIONS, it's about water 7 and whole cake island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 04:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15987959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalkyTop/pseuds/MalkyTop
Summary: Usopp loves that Sanji's back, really, he does. So why can't he just stop being bitter?





	if this had a serious title it would be Parallelism (bc usopp and sanji leaving the crew parallels it's deep)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lamppu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamppu/gifts).



> Commissioned by lamppu

It was odd how something so terrifying could be so comforting in another context. The rubbery hand that Usopp now clung to was snapping back into place, dragging him to an inevitable collision – but, and this was the important part, it was dragging him to an inevitable collision with _home._

Usopp’s head connected with Luffy’s at probably a hundred miles per hour and boy was it a good thing Luffy’s skull was rubber because otherwise this reunion would have ended pretty badly, hahaha. There were a few minutes where he couldn’t quite hold on to consciousness, and then it was back to snot and tears and apologies that so drowned out the outside world that he might as well have been unconscious still. He cried until it was biologically impossible to cry any more, squeezed a few more tears out anyways, wiped his face on his arm right as Nami offered him a handkerchief, and then noticed that he was, sitting on. Grass?

The deck was a lawn, and Usopp had a twinge of guilt for his immediate thrill at the sight of it (after all the trouble he caused over this very issue, was his heart really so easily swayed?), but then Sanji brought out drinks and Luffy called for a toast and there was nothing else but to drink and be merry.

As soon as Usopp’s mug was empty, Sanji was there to fill it up. “Gotta rehydrate you after all the fucking crying you did.”

“Didn’t cry _that_ much,” Usopp blurbbled into his mug.

“You kidding me? I thought your miraculous nose would fall clean off with the way you were rubbing it.”

“You’re one to talk,” Nami cut in, her face flushed but her expression too teasing to be drunk. “You were probably crying the most after those two idiots.”

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Sanji said, hiding his mouth in his drink, forgetting that he still had a cigarette in his mouth. He jerked his head back with a curse and sighed at the waste of nicotine, then knocked back his drink to get the taste of ash down quick. “I was very composed. As stoic as the shit mosshead’s left bicep.”

“He jumped into the air screaming like a freak.”

“Nami-san, please...”

“Actually, you were more emotional than when Robin or I came back...maybe Sanji-kun doesn’t care about us as much.”

The look of pure horror on Sanji’s face would have Chopper declaring him dead of shock, if he weren’t waving his arms around in a consoling and lively way. “N-no no no, Nami-san! Of course it’s not like that! No way that shit Longnose compares!”

Usopp leaned against Sanji’s shoulder. “Methinks he doth protest too much.”

“Nami-san and Robin-chan, I just knew you’d come back! That’s all! Your returns filled my chest to the brink with joy, I swear! Usopp was, it was just – “

Nami shoved Sanji’s other shoulder, nearly toppling him over. “C’mon, Sanji-kun! Don’t take it so seriously, it makes it so easy to tease you!”

Usopp tried to illustrate the point by leaning in even harder, cheek against his, grin a mile wide. “So you’re saying you missed me, huh, Sanji-kun~?”

But rather than sending him into even more frantic denials, Sanji mumbled, too soft to hear if Usopp hadn’t been literally next to his face, “Yeah. I did.”

Usopp found his face burning up instead, and it was so completely unfair how much that just backfired with just three stupid words. Something twisted inside his guts, squeezing out a small, “You did?” just in time for Sanji to stand up suddenly so that Usopp ended up asking his legs instead.

And, knowing Sanji, with his flawlessly performed machismo and consistent, deadpan denial, that was the end of that – and anybody who insisted that it wasn’t the end of that would be quickly convinced that it was the end of that with a short conversation with the end of his foot.

At least, that’s how the script went.

Where it diverged, though...was when Usopp woke up to something poking his face. “Usopp. You awake? Hey.”

Usopp grabbed at the offending face-poker and shoved it aside, only for it to curl around his fingers and tug a little, and Usopp squinted open his eyes and it was Sanji’s goddamn foot. “Usopp,” the owner of the foot continued, now poking him in the face with both the foot and his own goddamn hand that the foot was holding, which was somehow more insulting than just the foot. “Usopp. You’re awake, right? Hey.”

“ _Yes,_ ” Usopp hissed, shaking the foot’s grip off, “I _am._ ”

“Oh good.” If Sanji ever heard the word ‘apologetic,’ he probably would ask what kind of appetizer it was. “Look...back there, I mean, it doesn’t matter now, but...”

Usopp waited for what exactly he was supposed to look/listen at/to, only to hear some mildly concerning sounds that seemed to be a cross between strained whining and hummed irritation. Gently, with diplomacy and tact and everything else that made it less likely to suffer a sudden kick in the nose, Usopp said, “Yeah?”

“Never mind,” Sanji said, and in the dark Usopp could see his shadow lie back down.

He was left gaping for a few seconds at the goddamn nerve of this bastard before he finally figured out how to vocalize his affront. “Seriously? You’re going to wake me up at shit o’clock in the morning and then ‘never mind’ me?!” Sanji’s only response was a grunt and okay, seriously, screw him. Usopp reached over and managed to grab onto Sanji’s shoulder. “I swear to god if you don’t tell me what’s up _right now_ like a _normal, emotionally mature adult,_ I’m gonna – “

Usopp wasn’t able to say exactly what he was gonna, because Sanji twisted his legs in that impossible way he did and kicked him in the nose hard enough to knock him out of bed. His only vindication was that Sanji also unbalanced and fell out of bed as well. Too bad it was right on top of Usopp and the resulting, inhuman squawk that resulted woke up everybody in the cabin and in the midst of mollifying/arguing with four other people, the original topic was simply dropped and underwent the conversational equivalent of rolling under the fridge.

* * *

As promised, Luffy came back with his cook in tow. As promised, the Strawhats helped out the minks and the samurai with Kaido. As promised, they were down two Road Poneglyphs. (Or was that ‘up?’)

The Sunny was already three days out, sailing with barely a care in the world (well, like, five cares at most). Sanji was bringing out snacks for the lazy afternoon, hot milk tea with a refreshingly cool milk foam top that didn’t quite put Usopp to sleep as he drank it. Chopper was drinking some iced juice instead, some sort of odd, pulpy, blended green concoction that looked a little weird but was undoubtedly delicious. For now, there weren’t any storms or marines or pirates or Warlords; not even Zoro was training particularly hard – he capped his reps at just a mere five hundred and thirty-seven.

It was a superbly idyllic day and Usopp was just about ready to vibrate apart with anxiety.

Isn’t it weird? his mind was screaming, but it wasn’t telling him what the weird thing was. Everybody’s just relaxing, as far as he could see, but his brain was pointing at the sun and calling it the shoe that was about to drop, and Usopp wished that it would leave him out of its paranoia.

Sanji’s face dropped into view, upside-down. “Still not feeling well?”

In response, Usopp screamed, jerked his head back, banged it against the wall behind him, recoiled, stabbed his nose into Sanji’s eye, causing him to unhook his legs from the railing above where he had been hanging from and crash to the floor, and the two of them curled up on the deck for a second to nurse their various head injuries. Sanji recovered enough to sit back up and point. “What the fuck was that for!”

“Excuse me?? What the fuck was _that_ for!” Usopp gestured back.

“I was just asking how you were!”

“ _People don’t ask how people are while hanging upside-down from a railing, Sanji!_ That’s not something people do!”

“What’re you guys doin’?” Luffy said, hanging upside-down with his legs wrapped around the yard of the back mast. Usopp and Sanji stared at him for a moment.

“Yeah, that doesn’t give me any points,” Sanji admitted.

Luffy’s eyes brightened. “Ooh, are you playing a game? What kind? Can I play?”

“Yes. It’s called ‘Go Bother the Mosshead.’”

Usopp slunk away to the kitchen and closed the door just as he heard an enthusiastic, “Hey, I’m great at that game!” It took a little while and a lot of mayhem and cursing, but Sanji slipped through the door as well and leaned it shut for a few seconds to take a few calming breaths, his expression transitioning from ‘that goddamn fucking Luffy’ mode to ‘barely-masked genuine concern’ mode. That’s the last of what Usopp saw before he just flopped into a chair and _thunk_ ’d his head onto the table.

“You didn’t answer my question before,” Sanji said. And then, when Usopp didn’t respond, “What’s going on?”

“Nuh, y’asked ‘still not feelin’ well’ b’fore,” Usopp said to the table.

“Oh don’t be an ass,” Sanji grumbled with a light shove to Usopp’s shoulder. Despite his tone, when Usopp finally sat up straight, he looked relieved.

“Look,” Usopp said, stomach wringing itself in slow, sickening realization, or maybe ‘realization’ wasn’t the word for it, more of an ‘acknowledgment,’ or perhaps rather than a ‘realization’ it was just simply an ‘alization;’ the first time figuring out what was going on. Not the second. And now that he alized the truth of the matter, he knew that there was no way he could ever let anybody else realize it. Which Sanji was about to, if he kept pushing. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” he said, like an idiot.

Sanji’s cigarette pointed upwards in the way that it did when he was extremely pissed off and trying to be diplomatic about it; and failing, because his jaw was so tense that his cigarette was pointing up and it was making his face a tiny bit terrifying. It took a few seconds for Sanji to finally unlock his jaw and sigh out a steady stream of smoke. And then he tactfully kneed Usopp in the chin. “Don’t be stupid, you stubborn piece of shit!”

Usopp probably should have been grateful that it was a knee and not a foot, but given that he had been sent falling to the floor, somehow ‘grateful’ was not the first thing that sprung to mind. He immediately sat up, rubbing his jaw, and shot back, “What the hell! Is that supposed to be empathy?!”

“No, it’s supposed to be me not taking your bullshit!” Sanji pointed his cigarette inadvisably close to the end of Usopp’s nose, and Usopp was forced to lean back a little. “’It’s nothing’ this, ‘don’t worry’ that, stop dodging the question already! Who do you think you are – me?!”

Usopp, rubbing his nose in case some errant ash got snubbed on it, snapped back, “Well if you’re aware of it, why don’t you fix yourself first before trying to mind my own business!”

“That’s – I – because – “ Sanji spluttered before vocalizing an ‘aargh!’ and throwing his cigarette against the floor, which bounced at least twice. He at least had the forethought to snuff it out with his shoe before jabbing his finger towards Usopp like a fork trying to corner a pea. “Don’t change the subject! This isn’t about me, it’s about you!”

“Well maybe it’s kinda about you!” said Usopp, and uh-oh, said his mind, maybe it’s time to reel it in a bit, let’s back up before we say anything we regret. But too late, Sanji’s face was already sobering up, he was an absolute idiot but frustratingly astute at the most inconvenient moments.

“It’s about me leaving,” he said, with depressing finality.

“It’s not,” was Usopp’s reaction, but even the truth had a hint of desperation and Sanji’s face clouded all the more. “Seriously, just, it’s not! Just,” Usopp waved his hands around in abstract, circular motions, before leaning his head back with a groaning sigh and heading for the door. “Just, just forget it, never mind.”

“The hell’re you saying, ‘it’s not, it’s not,’” said Sanji, not forgetting it as he reached over and clasped a hand on Usopp’s shoulder. “You literally _just said,_ ”

With a force that startled the both of them, Usopp whirled around and threw off Sanji’s hand; and with even greater force, burning tears and rasping throat and all, “ _Why do you get it so easy when I went through hell!_ ”

There was silence, but a loud sort of silence, where every twitch in Sanji’s expression felt like a sonic blast through his heart, surprise and betrayal and anger and, and, “’Easy?’” Sanji repeated, voice smooth and low, which just showed how for real pissed he was. “You think it was _easy?_ Look, I’m sorry – “

“Well that’s news to me!” Usopp shouted back before his shoulders sunk and, quite suddenly, he turned around and just collapsed face-down on the couch and screamed into the cushions, which could have been nothing but alarming to Sanji as, instead of beating his head in for his sarcastic tone, all Usopp heard was a few flabbergasted attempts at words wafting somewhere from his direction. Turning his head so that the couch wouldn’t just soak up his words, Usopp took a deep breath and said, “I know I’m being unfair, and I’m glad you’re here, seriously, and I don’t actually feel angry, except, I am, a little, because like...I had to basically get down on my hands and knees to return. And you just get to. Come back.”

“Ah,” Sanji says, after a pause, which was more charitable than Usopp deserved.

When Sanji provided nothing else, Usopp continued, “It’s, it’s unfair, and I know it, and I just have to get over it, and I didn’t want you to know, but,” and then Sanji scooped him up and tossed him over his shoulder, causing the rest of Usopp’s sentence to simply dissipate in a single ‘oof.’

In the time that Sanji kicked open the kitchen door and dropped down to the main deck, Usopp managed to get out a “what,” before Sanji planted him on his feet under the mast and then ran off to parts unknown. And promptly ran back to parts known, carrying a protesting Chopper under his arm (“I can _walk,_ Sanji!”), dragging a curious Luffy by the wrist (“What, what, is it a surprise feast? Is the feast behind Usopp?”), and, miraculously, a compliant Zoro following behind, along with everybody else on the ship. Sanji moved Luffy standing right next to Usopp, set Chopper down on Luffy’s head, and then gestured at everybody else to line up next to them.

Once everybody was arranged as solemnly as Sanji could manage, he stepped out in front of them, knelt down on the deck, and pressed his forehead against the grass. Luffy straightened up from his slouch, eyes attentive, like he recognized this scene, but kept his mouth shut. Sanji breathed in the smell of fresh grass and said,

Zoro set a boot lightly on top of Sanji’s head.

Not that Sanji could see, but he knew who it was, it couldn’t be anybody else, and everybody knew that he knew, but he didn’t jump up to his feet, didn’t throw off the goddamn mosshead, didn’t start pelting him with a flurry of kicks, and this lack of reaction seemed to snap Zoro into some sort of self-awareness and he retreated back into place, mumbling, “That, well, I didn’t, it was on instinct...”

Once Zoro fell silent, Sanji re-breathed in the smell of fresh grass and said,

“I’m so fucking sorry for all the trouble I caused you.”

“About damn time _yeouch!”_ Zoro shot a glare at Nami, who casually removed her foot from on top of his.

“I realize this is a bit late,” Sanji continued, “with everything going on, it just, slipped my mind. I knew we were in the middle of all the shit with Kaidou but I just up and left anyways.”

“But we don’t blame you – “ Chopper spoke up, but Sanji steamrolled over him.

“No matter the excuses I have, it doesn’t change the fact that I was unreliable during a critical time, and you didn’t deserve that. I’m not asking for forgiveness or anything. Just. Sorry.”

There was a ruminating silence, during which Sanji kept his head bowed, the gesture probably out of respect, but his tense shoulders signified at least one other reason.

To his credit, Luffy at least deliberated for one second before just saying, “Yeah, okay.” Sanji stayed kneeling for a bit, as if waiting for the rest, and then slumped and rolled over on his back, hands clasping his face.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Sanji groaned out, “What did I expect. What did I even fucking expect.”

“What?” Luffy said defensively, “I said it’s okay!” and then Sanji did a sort of resigned laugh as he just let himself spread-eagle on the grass and the rest of the crew chimed in with their own condolences/reassurances. As far as apologies went, it was, well. Usopp didn’t want to say anything, but it was rather mundane. Sincere and appreciated, but. The distance between them and the incident also created an emotional distance and there was just no way to kinda, sorta, take this, seriously. Emotionally.

But, still, Sanji got down on his hands and knees (in front of Zoro even, holy shit), and that counted for a lot. So Usopp crouched down and patted Sanji on the shoulder along with the others as Luffy protested, what was wrong with saying okay when it’s okay?!

* * *

 

“I gotta confess something,” Sanji murmured in bed in the dead of night. Usopp had turned over to face Sanji after a barrage of poking at his head, resigned to no sleep until he heard him out on whatever the hell. “I’m kinda. Holding on to some beef too here. That’s unfair.”

The two of them sat listening to quiet snores for a moment until Usopp realized that Sanji was waiting for an acknowledgment and said, “Yeah?”

“I kinda. Felt maybe a bit. Upset. That not everybody went to get me.”

A lot of statements flew to Usopp’s tongue at once, all of them defensive. Usopp just said, “Ah.”

“And I know,” Sanji quickly tagged on, “I know it’s unfair, I know you guys had shit to deal with, I _know,_ but still, it was like, or I mean it felt like, you guys didn’t, care. Enough.” As Usopp tried to think of something less monosyllabic to say, Sanji seemed to take his silence as something to fill and fumbled out, “It’s stupid, I know, I didn’t even want you guys to deal with my shit, but, when I saw you weren’t there, I, it...”

It took a bit of stretching, but Usopp managed to grab Sanji’s hand and squeezed it. Sanji stopped talking.

“I was worried when I was in Wano,” he said. “I’m pretty sure everybody else was too. We all missed you.”

Sanji’s hand squeezed back, and though both arms were starting to ache, they let them dangle across the space between bunks.

“Usopp.”

“Hm?”

“Back when...I mean, with Water 7 and all, and. Like, those giants. They offered you a lift, and, I mean. It doesn’t matter, you didn’t go with them, you’re here and all, but, like. Between the two choices. How...close was it? Exactly?”

Usopp smiled to himself and said, “Not even.”


End file.
